


Devil Put Aside For Me

by Fire_Bear



Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Demons, Exorcisms, M/M, Supernatural AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:02:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Bear/pseuds/Fire_Bear
Summary: Once, the Wesninkis were a happy family. But the world was a cruel place and the supernatural invaded their home, forcing Neil and his mother out of it.Now, Neil is alone and on the trail of a demon, determined to put a stop to it. Hunting is the only thing he knows how to do and he'll do his best until his luck runs out - and it might run out on this particular hunt...
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: AFTG Bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817614
Kudos: 11
Collections: All For The Game Bingo 2020





	Devil Put Aside For Me

**Author's Note:**

> So. I told myself that I wouldn't start any new stories, but... Well, I got this idea while watching an episode of Supernatural and I really wanted to get the first chapter out. I've got vague ideas for bits and pieces of the rest of the story, but I've not worked everything out, so I'll have to come back to it once I have.
> 
> Then I found out that the AFTG Bingo was a-happening, so I decided to do that. This is for the FREE square, since I figured this counts.
> 
> God knows when I'll get back to this, though. I have so many unfinished stories. 
> 
> The title comes from [Where The Heart Is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0pTrPfiwgE) by Brett Eldredge.

Neil cursed under his breath as he stared down at the middle-aged man who lay on the ground. Blood still dripped from the small cut on his cheek, slowly making its way towards the concrete beneath him like a tear. But he would never cry again - people needed a heart to do that and the guy didn’t have one, not anymore. 

Nobody else was around, and there didn’t seem to be anything left behind either. He cursed again, just to make sure that the world knew how pissed off he was before he nudged the dead man to roll him over. Maybe there was a clue underneath him. If there wasn’t, his earlier efforts had been fruitless. The man’s body flopped over, his limp hand slapping onto the hard floor. It echoed in the empty space. Neil’s sigh also echoed when he realised that there wasn’t anything that could point him in the direction of the next victim. Back to the drawing board it was.

Keeping his weapon drawn, he left the abandoned building. It was some sort of warehouse or large barn that had been tucked away at the edge of the woods just outside of Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Neil had had to use the man’s GPS signal on his cell to pinpoint the location and he’d still arrived too late. Irritated, he returned to where he had set up his trap and shoved the large branches aside. He had pulled them over his Devil’s Trap but he had to erase his presence as much as possible. With the barrel of his gun he drew a line through the perfect circle he had drawn, the practice drilled into him so much that, even in a hurry, it wasn’t sloppy. 

As soon as the circle was broken, however, Neil felt the magic in it break. Then he set about scuffing it out of the ground; he had used a stick to draw it into the dirt, using nature to trap the demon when he, hopefully, drew it out of the building. Instead, he was going to have to hope it rained to churn up the earth he’d disturbed or someone would know he’d been there. 

Once he’d erased the trap and had gathered up the extra weapons and other things that he’d placed in strategic places in order to grab them when the demon inevitably threw him around, Neil packed everything away and got into the crappy car he had stolen back in Nashville. It was temperamental, but it had a trunk that closed which was an improvement on the flat-bed truck that he’d been using since he could actually hide all of his equipment. And, at the moment, the AC was actually working; he sighed in relief as he settled behind the steering wheel. He rubbed a hand over his neck, wiping away the sweat, and took the piece of paper from his pocket.

On it was a list of people, names and addresses. It had been at the first scene, so well hidden that nobody had found or reported the body by the time Neil had arrived there. The only reason he had found it at all had been the demonic omens (crop circles, dead cattle, horrible weather) and the vision that a psychic he had been buying supplies from had told him about. When he’d arrived, he’d found the woman with no heart and the piece of paper held tightly in her hand. Upon searching the names and places on his secure, scuffed laptop, he had found that two of them had died in the same way already. This man marked the fourth victim, though he couldn’t work out what the connection between them could be. All he did know was that there was someone called Penny Brendan who lived in Dumas, Texas, and he had to get to her before the demon did.

With a huff of frustrated breath, Neil shoved the piece of paper back into his pocket. He twisted the key in the ignition and drove off, the wheels kicking up stones in its wake. It had been a tight fit to get the car down the overgrown trail, but he’d managed it and had even turned it before he parked. Now, though, he was more cautious. If people saw him leaving, they might get suspicious. Besides which, the road could be busy and he couldn’t afford a crash. 

Thankfully, after much wincing and slow manoeuvring, Neil drove out onto an empty road. He quickly tugged on the steering wheel and started on his way west. The sun was setting, so he fumbled for the sun visor for a moment till he’d gotten it down. 

Then, as had become a habit, Neil glanced into the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t being followed. He blinked when he realised that there was a sleek, black car several yards behind him. It was far enough behind him that he couldn’t make out the details of the two people in the front seats, nor its licence number. But he did make out the fact that its indicator was on and it turned into a layby just as Neil turned a corner and the trees obscured any more details.

Although, Neil thought, it looked a lot like it had turned into the trail that Neil had just come from…

* * *

Since this was urgent, Neil took the fastest route he could, using Google Maps to work out which was the best. He drove as fast as he dared, which was just a smidge higher than the limit. There was no point driving like the devil was after him if he got arrested. Neil snorted at his thoughts. If anyone was to drive like the forces of evil were trying to run him down, it would probably be him.

When Neil had been a toddler, his father had been as pleased as his mother, both of them leading a happy life. His father had had a respectable business in real estate thanks to his ancestors. His mother had been charmed by him and was hopelessly in love with him and, as Neil had been told, they both loved him. They’d lived in a huge house in Baltimore and life had been good.

And then Neil’s father had been possessed by a demon.

Neither he nor his mother had known at first, though that was mainly because Neil was too young to understand any differences and his mother had her hands full with him. But, slowly, the demon’s attention turned from the fun it was having with the criminal empire it had built under Nathan Wesninski’s name, to the humans it lived with. It became abusive to both Neil and his mother, Mary. Neil had the scars to prove it. For some reason, though, it refused to outright kill them. 

That was its first mistake.

Mary slowly worked out what had happened to her husband and, though she tried a few times to exorcise it, she never managed it. She came out of those confrontations with broken bones and more fear than before. So, one day, when the Nathan demon was distracted with whatever fun it and its demonic minions were up to, she grabbed Neil and ran. Later, Neil could never figure out how she’d done it without alerting them to her intentions, but they managed to get away.

Afterwards, while they were on the run, Mary started to research demons and how to beat them, how to exorcise them. She wanted to hunt them to extinction, wanted a way of trapping Nathan and expelling the demon from him. Somewhere, deep down, Neil was sure she was hoping beyond hope that the years and years of possession wouldn’t have a negative effect on her husband, that she would get him back at some point. 

As she looked into it, she discovered that other supernatural creatures existed. She started hunting in earnest as they wound their way around the world, on the run from Neil’s father. Eventually, they had ended up back in America - it was a big enough place to hide, Mary had decided. But Nathan still found them. Despite not killing them before, he had swiftly dealt with Mary and Neil had had to run, barely getting away from him. He suspected that he was unimportant to their plans, that killing Mary had been the goal that time. If Nathan had really tried, he would be dead, but it was only by dint of the demon allowing it that Neil was speeding his way across the state line to save a woman he didn’t know and didn’t really care about.

Eventually, Neil made it to the town. It was late now and his stomach was grumbling. He grimaced; ideally, he would go straight to the address he had and case the place. Leaving it too late could have disastrous consequences. But he would need the energy for a fight and couldn’t afford any mistakes. So, with a sigh, he turned off into a Wendy’s parking lot and went inside. Once he’d eaten as much as he could and picked at the excess, he grabbed the bottle of water he had bought and headed back to his car. 

Just as he was unlocking the door, a sleek, black car swung into the lot and parked over two spaces. Neil raised an eyebrow as he opened the door to his own car, watching as two short men and a taller one slipped out of the car. It was only once he had sorted himself out and begun to pull away that he noticed that he was being watched. One of the shorter men - he had blond hair under the streetlamp - kept his eyes on Neil’s car. Neil shuddered and tried to scrutinise him in the rearview mirror as he drove off, but he was fast running out of time, if he even had any, so he decided not to wait to find out if the man was a demon sent after him.

* * *

When he finally arrived at the specified address, Neil fished out the tablet that cop cars usually had tucked away for checking licences and things like that. He’d stolen it from a cop car years ago, when his mother was still alive and had had to pay a good amount of money to have it updated every so often. And ‘updated’ meant hacking into the police databases once again. It was risky to do so, but it was a necessary evil if Neil wanted to continue hunting.

With nothing else to his name and no other skills save for being rather good with math, he didn’t have much of a choice.

He called up the information he needed on Penny Brendan and checked that she still lived in the same address. She did and Neil looked over the rest of the information. Apparently, she worked in the DMV, of all places, and was a foster parent to a couple of kids. Her partner had been in a car accident a couple of months before and was in a coma so she seemed to be struggling to get by. A cursory search on the Internet told Neil that she had had the community rally around her, with her neighbours helping to raise the children.

But Neil had breezed through the last few towns and he was beginning to notice a trend. All of the people who had been targeted had been foster parents. After a little bit of digging, he had found that, though they hadn’t all fostered the same children, some of them had been shared between one or more of the people in the list. Still, it was enough of a connection to seem like it wasn’t a coincidence - more so when Neil had spotted that a girl with the same first name but different surnames had been registered at all of their houses. Neil figured that they weren’t all they were made out to be and someone had made a deal with a demon to seek revenge for something they had all collectively done.

If he could stop the demon, maybe he would save the soul of whoever had made the deal.

Looking at the house across the road, he watched as a shadowy figure began to draw the curtains. There was no way to know if Penny Brendan was still alive; she may not have been reported missing, but he hadn’t seen her with his own eyes. By the time he had arrived, the house was shut up. Even the children seemed to be inside. There was only one way to do that.

Leaning over, he fished a fake ID from the glovebox. He’d had it ready while he was on the road, but, once he was back, he would make sure to stuff everything into his ‘bare bones’ essential duffel bag. It contained a few sets of clothes and toiletries, a few protein bars and bottles of water, a large hunting knife (because the machete hadn’t fit), a couple of demon lore books, a few guns with at least one containing silver bullets, and a journal that contained more than just the details of his cases that he kept track of. At the moment, Neil had a couple of guns and knives hidden on his person, but he couldn’t actually take his duffel bag up to the front door. So, taking a deep breath, he left the bag tucked under the passenger seat. Then he went into the trunk, pulled out a fake clamp and put it on the back wheel that faced the street. He had fashioned it out of a real clamp that he’d taken off an old car and kept - it was mostly useless since he’d broken it off, but it let him drive off in a hurry if he had to while also deterring thieves.

By the time he got up to the front door, though, he was already itching to get back to his things, desperate to have his journal where he could touch it. Instead of acting on the urge to turn and run, Neil knocked on the door and waited for an answer. An outdoor light flicked on about a minute after he’d alerted the residents to his presence and he blinked until he could see the plain, white door opening. Just before the woman poked her head around the gap, Neil forced on a polite smile.

“Hello?” said Penny Brendan, an average-sized woman with average looks. Brown hair, brown eyes, straight nose, pink lips. Neil envied her for a brief moment. This was a woman who could go unnoticed, if not for the wary, suspicious look in her eyes. 

“Good evening, ma’am,” said Neil as cheerfully as he could, trying to draw her attention from his appearance. “Are you Penny Brendan?” 

“Yes,” she said, glancing over Neil’s shoulder as if she was expecting to see someone else. “Can I help you?”

“I sure hope so, ma’am.” Neil lifted his ID, another distraction from his face so he could fade from her memory. “I’m from social services. Just here for a brief visit.”

“Really?” Brendan asked, her eyes widening. 

“We’ve had a few complaints from people,” Neil lied to her. “So we’re doing a few surprise visits. Nothing to worry about, really,” he added as he slipped his ID away. “Just need to take a quick look around, see the kids. You know how it is. Kids like these slip through the cracks a lot.”

“Oh, um,” said Brendan, glancing over her shoulder. “The young ones are in bed already.”

“Ah,” said Neil with a grimace, hiding his relief. Really, he had only wanted to make sure that she was still where she was supposed to be. “I arrived here too late, huh? Well, let me just…” He took out his phone and tapped at it until he got into his GPS app. “The cell number we’ve got on file, is this it?” Neil rattled out a random set of digits.

“Oh, no,” said Brendan, pulling her phone from the back pocket of her mom jeans. “I’ve got a new phone. Let me just…” She pulled something up on her phone while Neil tried not to react to the surprising stroke of good luck. It probably meant that the fight with the demon was going to be a bitch and he had to suppress the urge to sigh. Brendan rattled off the number and Neil entered it into the app. Hitting enter, the dot popped up just where he was. 

“Great,” said Neil. “I’ll arrange a visit in the morning before they head to school, so I’ll call around eight. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Brendan.”

“It’s Miss,” she said with a tremulous smile. 

“Miss Brendan,” Neil corrected himself with a nod and a smile. He turned to go and Brendan closed her door so quickly that Neil was surprised it didn’t slam. 

Back at the car, he took off the fake clamp and slid into the driver’s seat, his eyes still on the blinking dot. She was still in the house and Neil hoped it stayed that way. So far, the demon had waited until its victims had left the house. Neil suspected that it liked to hunt them down, to terrify them before ripping their hearts out. He placed a notification on his phone for if she decided to leave and set his phone into its holder.

Once he was settled, he leaned over and dug out his duffel bag. He opened it and made sure that everything was still inside in its very specific way. Then he pulled out his journal and flicked through it. All of his notes and his mother’s notes were still there. So were all of the hidden codes and numbers, each of them leading to a different hidden stache or for people who could help him if he really needed it. There was also the number of his uncle who was still in England, blissfully unaware that demons and monsters existed. Mary had told him, once, but he had explained it away. He’d told Mary that she was overreacting, that she must have been seeing things, that Nathan was just a man and he could be beaten. 

When she realised that her own brother wouldn’t help her, Mary had taken her son and ran.

He put everything back in the bag, zipped it up and started the car. There were things he had to prepare so he would go find a motel or a cheap hotel, and then he could figure out how to trap the demon without letting Brendan know she was in any danger. Before he had properly pulled away, there was a chime from his phone. Neil glanced at it and then looked up as he drove off; Brendan was walking along the street, facing away from him, with a large trash bag. He grimaced and drove past her before taking a sharp turn. With the app on his phone, he was able to double back and follow her at a distance, wondering where she could possibly be going when she was leaving behind a house full of kids.

* * *

For some reason, Brendan decided to make her way to a park that was just behind a church. When she entered, Neil parked nearby and hurried to his trunk. He pulled out another bag, this one filled with things he would need: a bottle of holy water; a knife with runes on it which he had found when a demon had attacked him shortly after losing his mother; guns in order to stop the demon, at least for a moment; packets of chalk. Neil slung it over his shoulder, put on the clamp and slammed the trunk closed. Once he was sure his car was secure, he hurried into the park and found a distant figure pushing out the other side. 

Cursing, Neil hurried across the park, trying not to attract her attention. He was sure he could have caught up with her if he had run, but the noise of his feet on the little path and the movement would likely make her look over her shoulder. So she exited the little park through the gate on the other side before Neil could catch up with her, disappearing from sight. Neil kept his pace for a few more moments before speeding up so he could see where she was going. 

It turned out that there was another road between the park and the cemetery that backed onto the church. For some reason, Brendan was taking that bag into the cemetery. Neil frowned. What on Earth could she be doing? Did she know a demon was after her and was trying to protect herself? Of course, Neil wouldn’t find out by staying where he was, peering through the gate at where she had gone. So, taking a deep breath, sure he was about to fight another demon, Neil pushed through the gate and crossed the road.

As he glanced around, mostly to make sure he wasn’t about to be run over, but also to check if the demon was going to pop up, Neil noticed a particular car. It was sleek and black and he was sure it was the same one as at Wendy’s. Beside the cemetery, it looked like a gargoyle, hunched and waiting to pounce. Neil shuddered; maybe the people in it were demons after all, here to kill Brendan. With a grimace, Neil picked up the pace and entered the cemetery at a jog. 

He had just enough time to spot the figure of Brendan sliding into the shadows under the trees against the church before someone - or _something_ \- else stepped into his path. As quick as a flash, he reached for his gun, but stopped when he noticed his assailant had his own already trained on him. Neil froze, staring at the person warily. 

Away from the glare of the streetlights, it was difficult to see him. However, he seemed to have light coloured hair and a scowl. To Neil, he seemed to be like the man at Wendy’s but there was something off about him. The man slowly cocked the gun, his thumb moving slowly. Then he tilted his head, perhaps in confusion. His aim wavered and he lowered the gun just enough for Neil to realise he had a chance.

Whoever this was, he obviously wasn’t a demon - they didn’t need _guns_ unless they were pretending at being human - and he clearly wasn’t going to shoot him. Or, at the very least, was having second thoughts. Still, this was not in the plan and he had no idea what he was doing there. He could have been another hunter, there for the demon, but Neil couldn’t know without asking and he didn’t want to do that. Instead, he decided to get back to all his things as quickly as possible, check the GPS again and then, hopefully, he could get the jump on the demon. So, as soon as the man had lowered his gun enough, Neil spun on his heel and started to run back the way he came.

He only got a couple of steps away before something came swinging towards him. Before he could dodge, the thing rammed into his head. Gasping, he crumpled, his eyes fluttering as he attempted to keep them open. But the pain was blinding him and he knew he was going to lose consciousness at the very least.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he heard the man say. “What the fuck?”

Since he seemed to be distracted and despite being injured, Neil dug his fingers into the dirt and tried to pull himself away from him. Away to safety. Then there came another voice, similar but for the different, almost monotone lilt to it.

“You should have shot him.”

“But, he didn’t-”

“Shush.” There was the crunching sound of boots coming closer. Neil couldn’t see much when he laboriously turned his head, but he saw the blond hair again and someone said, “He’s still awake. Better luck next time, werewolf.”

“What?” Neil tried to say, but he thought it came out as a grunt. If they thought he was a werewolf, then he had no chance. He was probably about to die. Something like relief flooded him and he hoped he’d end up in heaven with his mother, just before his thoughts dripped away into silence.

* * *

When Neil woke, he knew he was still alive, somehow. There was a pounding, pulsing pain in his head and something sticky itched at his temple. Pushing past the head wound, he was able to feel the pinching pain of having his hands tied behind his back. As well as that, there was the uncomfortable tingling of the leg that had fallen asleep as he lay on his side, his ribs pressed into the flat, hard surface beneath him. That meant he wasn’t safe and he needed to leave, now.

Wary of letting anyone know he was awake, he opened one eye. He seemed to be lying on the altar of a church, possibly the one he’d been behind when he’d been attacked. Empty pews stared back at him, waiting for a sermon he never wanted to give. Large, stained glass windows let in little light, while the candles that were lit flickered in the shadows. 

There were also two, identical men staring right at him. 

Unfortunately, he caught the eye of one of them; he stared back at him without expression. “He’s awake,” he said, most likely to let the other one know.

The second man blinked and leaned closer from where they both sat on the very front pew. Neil stared back at them for a moment before he shuffled around on the altar. He pushed himself upright with his elbow and turned himself until he was facing them. “Who are you?” he asked, cautious and confused. Why hadn’t they killed him or left him in the graveyard? What did they want from him? 

“No,” said the first man.

“We’re asking the questions,” the second one added.

“Questions about what?” Neil retorted, already attempting to get free. He had a lot of experience in this, since demons noticed a lot. With certain movements, he could mask the ones that he would make while he twisted his wrists to and fro. 

Without speaking, the first man stood up and held aloft a silver necklace upon which a gold ring dangled. “This will answer all of them.”

“A ri-?” Neil stopped and stared at them. “Wait. No. You can’t still think that I’m a werewolf?”

“We’ll find out. The chain is silver.”

“I’m not a- You’re investigating the foster parents deaths, right? Look, let me go and we can still save Penny Brendan-”

“No. You cannot sweet talk your way out of this.”

“Not that any werewolf has ever tried,” mumbled the second man.

“It’s not a werewolf!” Neil exclaimed. “Can’t you tell by the markings on the bodies? It’s a demon, and none of us has set up for an exorcism. We need to get to Brendan before it-”

“Quiet,” said the first man. 

“There’s no such thing as demons,” added the second one.

Neil stared at them again. “How can you be hunters and _not know_ about the existence of demons?! You’re going to end up dead.”

“Is that a threat?” the first man asked, seeming unperturbed. 

“It’s a certainty,” Neil retorted. 

The man snorted and turned to the second one. “Here,” he said, handing over the chain. “Check him.”

Neil rolled his eyes but decided it would probably be in his best interest to let them press the chain against him. It wasn’t as if it would hurt him. Still, he kept tugging at the rope they’d tied him up with. So far, he’d managed to slide one of his hands through one of the loops, but they must have used a complicated knot because he was still trapped.

The second one turned his head towards the first, giving him some sort of look. Neil wasn’t sure what expression he had in the gloom. After a moment of silence, the noise of the empty church pressing down on them, the second one stood, snatched the necklace and stomped over to the altar. With a disinterested and almost clinical hand, the man pushed up Neil’s pants leg and pressed the chain to his shin. He waited a beat then spun away from him and stomped back to the other, dropping the chain into his hand. Spinning on his heel, the man dropped onto the pew, still leaning forward.

“So, we’re supposed to believe the lies you’re telling us. How sinful,” said the first man, sounding bored. Neil was sure he’d wanted to kill him for being a werewolf and, now that he had been proven not to be one, he no longer cared about Neil and his fate.

“There are no lies,” Neil told him. “It’s a demon doing all this.”

“So, what,” said the second man, “you want us to believe there’s a hell? And a heaven?” He scoffed, the sound echoing just to emphasise how little he believed Neil.

“Of course there is,” Neil replied, rolling his eyes at them. 

“I expect you’ve met demons and angels before?” the first man commented as he looped the chain over his head. 

“Not angels. Unless they’re possessing someone, they can kill by sight alone. Humans aren’t meant to see something as pure as an angel,” Neil recited.

“You expect us to believe that there really is an all-powerful god?”

“I don’t know about that.” Neil shrugged. “There’s books of lore about them both; you don’t think there’s a little bit of truth to them?” 

“Of course not,” said the first man.

“If there were angels, we wouldn’t be here,” muttered the other one. The first man shot him a look and the second one leant backwards, one arm on the back of the pew.

Neil shrugged again. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” With a twist of his wrist, the rope scraping along his skin, he managed to get another inch of his hand out. “The thing hunting all these people is a demon, and it’s doing it in order of location. I have to stop it.”

“Not save the woman?” asked the first man.

“That would be a bonus, but more people will die if we-”

“Do you really care about that?”

Taking a deep breath, Neil glared at him and counted to ten before he spoke. “It doesn’t matter right now. Let me go. If I don’t catch it tonight, I’ll have to explain everything to Brendan and get her to let me set up a Trap.”

“No,” said the first man, firmly. “I still-”

He was cut off by a faint scream coming from outside. All three of them perked up and turned towards it. Neil stared at one of the stained glass windows, as if he could see the woman through them. The one he found himself looking at was one where Jesus stood over a naked man, spirits rising from him and looping towards several pigs. Neil wasn’t sure what it was about, but the apparent possession felt appropriate.

“You need to free me,” Neil told the two men. “I’ll go-”

“No,” the first man said again. “Come on,” he added to the second man, turning to stroll towards the doors. 

“Silver bullets?” said the second man, already checking his gun as he stalked down the aisle.

“They won’t work!” Neil called after them. “You’re only going to die!”

Neither of them listened and they were quickly swallowed by the darkness. Neil had no doubt that it would be the last time he would see them alive. And, if the demon was clever, it might ask them if there were any other hunters around. He didn’t think they’d have any qualms about telling it about the hunter trapped in the church. 

So, as soon as they had left, Neil slipped off the altar, careful so he wouldn’t hurt himself. He tugged at his bonds again, but only succeeded in scraping the rope over his skin once more. Hissing at the pain, he looked around and spotted the candles at the side of the room. If he remembered correctly, it was where people lit candles for people who had died (for some reason he couldn’t comprehend), but they also happened to be at the perfect height for Neil to burn the rope. Making sure not to trip down the stairs, Neil hurried over and turned, wincing when his fingers got too close to the flames. He tugged at the rope, drew it taut, ignored the pain as it squeezed his wrists, and held it over where a candle still puttered away.

Almost as soon as he got situated, he heard the report of guns. There were several shots. In fact, as the noises kept going, he realised that the two of them were emptying their guns. He winced. They would definitely be dead when he left the church at this rate. 

Silence suddenly fell from outside. Neil stilled and listened hard, wondering if the fight was already over. All he could hear was the gentle puttering of the candles and the snap of the rope. Forgetting about the hunters for a moment, Neil tugged at his bonds again and felt them give. He stepped away from the candles, twisted his wrists to and fro and dropped the rope. As he was shaking out his sore wrists, the doors suddenly banged open and Neil ducked down so that the pews hid him.

“Shit,” came the voice of the man who wasn’t wearing the ring. “That not-a-werewolf guy is gone.”

“He’s here somewhere,” said the other one, sounding both unsurprised and disinterested.

Neil tilted his head, wondering why they were still alive. There was no way they could have killed the demon, not without something more special than mere silver bullets. Not to mention the sheer strength of demons. Those two should definitely have had their hearts ripped out or their necks broken. He considered his options, but since he wasn’t sure whether Brendan was alive, where the demon was or why these hunters still existed on Earth, he decided he would have to actually interact with the men.

He stood up abruptly and apparently startled one of them who stumbled. The one who stumbled was propping up the other one who shoved at him until he let go, using the end of a pew to stay standing. They both looked rather beat up. There was a scratch on the cheek of one of them, as well as something matted in his hair, likely blood. The one propped up on the pew must have hurt his leg somehow and was gripping the wood far more tightly than Neil thought he needed to. Both of them stared at him, clearly waiting for him to speak.

“Is it still out there?” he demanded.

The man with the scratch shook his head. “He… His eyes. They were-”

“Black?” Neil suggested.

“No. Red.”

Cursing, Neil kicked the end of the closest pew. “It’s a crossroads demon. Someone made a deal with it.”

“Yes,” said the man with the injured leg. “It’s Sophie Timpson.”

“Sophie…” Neil repeated, frowning. “Is that the same person as-”

“Sophie Doe. Yes.”

“How do you know?”

With a sigh, the man with the bad leg pulled himself into the pew and sat down. “Because we did what you did and then, instead of trailing after something that is nigh impossible to defeat, we went to the one person who had been fostered by all of those ‘victims’. She said she’s made a deal with the devil, though we assumed it was just a werewolf.”

“It’s not impossible,” Neil corrected him. “All you do is get it into a Devil’s Trap, exorcise it and, usually, bury the body.”

“What body?” demanded the other man, frowning.

“Demons… are not kind to their host,” Neil explained. “The longer they’re in their bodies…”

“The deader the human?” the seated man drawled.

“Yes. The lesser demons jump from host to host unless they take a liking to their host’s body. But the one you saw was a crossroads demon. You can tell by the colour of their eyes. They’re more powerful.” Neil bit his tongue for a moment, thinking. “I could trap it, but I’m not sure how long it would hold,” he said, talking more to himself than the two men. “Then it’s just a simple matter of an exorcism.”

“So you know how to deal with this thing?” said the man who was still standing.

“Yeah.”

“Then we can leave you to it.”

“Aaron,” said the other man, his tone firm yet, somehow, still disinterested. Aaron fell silent and spun on his heel to stalk up the length of the church. “You need help,” the unnamed man told Neil, his attention apparently still on him.

Neil frowned. “No.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to drag you along and right into danger,” Neil protested.

“We are hunters. So are you. This is what we do.”

“I’m not- I don’t even know you!” Neil glanced at the altar. “And you just kidnapped me,” he added, in an offhand manner.

“Barely,” the man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Even if you say no, we will be there. We do not leave a job undone.”

“I-”

“It’ll be easier,” said Aaron, gruffly, “if you just agree with him.”

“I’m not driving to Santa Fe with you,” Neil snapped. 

“No,” the mystery man said. “I’ll be driving. Or Nicky. But you will be in the car with us.”

Neil wanted to ask who Nicky was but that meant getting invested in the idea of them hunting together. They were also being more insistent than any other hunters that he had met and he couldn’t figure out why. Unless… Neil looked between them. From what he could see in the dim light, they looked very similar. “Why should I trust you?” he questioned them. 

“You don’t need to trust us,” said the nameless man. “You just need to do as I say.”

Scoffing, Neil shook his head. “Sure,” he said, dryly. “And then you and your shapeshifter buddy over there can turn on me at some point.”

Raising an eyebrow, not-Aaron said, “You think we’re monsters.”

“I think you forgot the part where you attacked me and took me hostage,” Neil pointed out.

“But we touched silver,” Aaron pointed out, rolling his eyes.

“It could have been fake.”

“Then we are at an impasse,” the other guy said. “If it was fake, then you could be a werewolf.”

He had a point, infuriatingly enough. Neil folded his arms and frowned at them, watching them both in case they tried to attack him. None of them spoke for a few seconds, but Aaron eventually huffed and made a dismissive gesture. 

“We’re twins,” he snapped. “Is that good enough for you?”

“Twins?” Neil asked. He blinked, looking between them. “I’ve never met twin hunters before. People who hunt with family members-” Neil broke off, remembering his mother and her horrifying death.

“That should tell you something,” said the unnamed man.

“What?” said Neil in confusion.

“We’re a family that haven’t had any deaths.” In the aisle, Neil noticed Aaron still. He cast him a glance, but Aaron was glaring at the pew and did nothing else interesting. So Neil looked back at his twin with a frown. The twin sighed, as if Neil was inconveniencing him. “We hunt, but we stay alive. We protect each other. That is what you want, is it not? To stay alive. To have someone to help you on this hunt.”

Neil gritted his teeth to keep his response in. He didn’t want this man to have the satisfaction of knowing how much he yearned for someone to be there with him, to help him carry his pain. It had been so hard to carry on after his mother had died. And now, as easy as breathing, this man was offering to hold him up, at least for a while. Neil swallowed, wavering between the need to stay away from others and the wanting. 

With a sigh, the man lifted a hand in a gesture that made Neil think that he was about to concede something. “Why don’t we make a deal? We drive you to the next place, we deal with the demon, and then we can go our separate ways. We can finish this case and you can stop the demon. Well?”

Though he tried, Neil couldn’t think of a reason to say no. It was all a little too neat and tidy for his tastes, though, and his mother’s voice niggled away in the back of his head. _Don’t work with other hunters, you can’t trust them not to give you away._ But, as long as they were unaware who he was, then he’d be safe enough for a few hours. And, if not, he would just have to make sure that there were plenty of Devil’s Traps. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves and nodded once.

“Fine. We have a deal.”

“Then let’s go.” The man pushed himself to his feet and gripped the back of the pew in front of him tightly. Neil could hear it creak. Turning his head, the man looked at Neil. “Name,” he said.

“What?” Neil replied, confused.

“It’ll be easier to work with you if we know your name.”

“I don’t know yours,” Neil pointed out, folding his arms.

The man sighed. “Andrew Minyard.” He gestured at his brother. “Aaron. Yours?”

“Neil,” he told him, the first time he had told anyone this particular name. “Josten,” he added, once he had remembered the surname.

“Then, Neil Josten,” said Andrew Minyard. “We’re going. Now.” And, despite his injury, Andrew Minyard limped ahead of them down the length of the church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The stained glass window depicts [this story](http://www.learningscriptures.info/bible-stories-new-testament/legion-bible-story.htm).


End file.
